This application claims the benefit of the Korean Application No. P2002-32898 filed on Jun. 12, 2002, which is hereby incorporated by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a multi-type air conditioner.
2. Background of the Related Art
In general, the air conditioner is an appliance for cooling or heating a room space, such as a residential space, a restaurant, and an office. Recently, there have been ceaseless developments of multi-type air conditioner for more efficient cooling or heating of a room space partitioned into a plurality of rooms.
The multi-type air conditioner is provided with one outdoor unit and multiple indoor units each installed in each room and connected to the one outdoor unit. The multi-type air conditioner operative either in a cooling or heating mode for cooling or heating a room.
However, of the plurality of rooms, even in a case when some of rooms require heating while other rooms require cooling, since the multi-type air conditioner is operative in the cooling mode or heating mode uniformly, the multi-type air conditioner has a limit in dealing with such a requirement, properly.
For an example, there are rooms in a building, of which temperature differ from other room depending on locations of the rooms or time in a day. That is, while rooms in a north side part of the building require heating, rooms in a south side part of the building require cooling, to which requirements the related art multi-type air conditioner operative only in one mode can not but fail to deal with, properly. Moreover, in a case the building has a computer room, which requires cooling for coping with heat generation of the computer, not only in summer, but also in winder, the related art multi-type air conditioner fails to deal with such a requirement, properly.
At the end, above requirements calls for a multi-type air conditioner which can air condition the rooms simultaneously and individually. That is, development of a multi-type air conditioner of simultaneous cooling/heating type is required, so that the indoor unit in a room which requires heating is operated in a heating mode, and, at the same time with this, the indoor unit in a room which requires cooling is operated in a cooling mode.
Accordingly, the present invention is directed to a multi-type air conditioner that substantially obviates one or more of the problems due to limitations and disadvantages of the related art.
An object of the present invention is to provide a multi-type air conditioner which can carry out heating and cooling at the same time.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a multi-type air conditioner which has a plurality of distributors for easy installation of indoor units, reduction of lengths of piping connecting the distributors to the indoor units, simplifying pipe connection between the distributors and the indoor units for easy piping work of the indoor units and better outer appearance.
Further object of the present invention is to provide a multi-type air conditioner, in which refrigerant in the distributors is designed to move to each other for improvement of an air conditioning efficiency.
Additional features and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be apparent to those having ordinary skill in the art upon examination of the following or may be learned from practice of the invention. The objectives and other advantages of the invention will be realized and attained by the structure particularly pointed out in the written description and claims hereof as well as the appended drawings.
To achieve these objects and other advantages and in accordance with the purpose of the present invention, as embodied and broadly described herein, the multi-type air conditioner includes an outdoor unit installed to an outside of a room, including a compressor and a outdoor heat exchanger, outdoor pipelines connected to the compressor and the outdoor heat exchanger for forming flow paths, and a plurality of outdoor valves mounted on the outdoor pipelines for controlling refrigerant flow, a plurality of indoor units installed in rooms respectively each including an indoor heat exchanger and an electronic expansion valve, and a plurality of distributors each including a gas-liquid separator for separating refrigerant from the outdoor unit into gas refrigerant and liquid refrigerant, and distributor pipelines for guiding the gas or liquid refrigerant separated at the gas-liquid separator to the indoor units, and guiding the refrigerant passed through the indoor unit to the outdoor unit again.
The outdoor pipelines includes a pipeline connecting an outlet of the compressor and an inlet of the gas-liquid separator, to form a refrigerant flow passage from the compressor to the gas-liquid separator, and a pipeline connecting a distributor pipeline and the inlet of the compressor to form a refrigerant flow passage from the distributor to the compressor.
The outdoor valves include a first four way valve mounted on an outlet side of the compressor for making the outdoor pipelines in communication with each other selectively depending on operation conditions, to fix a flow path of the refrigerant to/from the compressor, and a second four way valve mounted on a gas-liquid separator side to be operative in correspondence to the first four way valve, for making the outdoor pipelines in communication with each other selectively depending on operation conditions, to fix a flow path of the refrigerant to the gas-liquid separator or from the distributor pipeline.
The outdoor pipeline connected between the second four way valve and the gas-liquid separator is a high pressure section only a high pressure state of refrigerant flows therethrough, and the outdoor pipeline connected between the distributor pipeline and the second four way valve is a low pressure section only a low pressure state of refrigerant flows therethrough.
The high pressure section includes high pressure branch pipelines branched to the gas-liquid separators, and the low pressure section includes low pressure branch pipelines branched to the distributor pipelines of the distributors.
Preferably, the high pressure section has a pipe diameter smaller than the low pressure section for prevention of non-uniform flow rates caused by a specific volume difference between high pressure refrigerant and low pressure refrigerant.
The distributor pipelines includes a liquid refrigerant pipeline for guiding liquid refrigerant separated at the gas-liquid separators, a liquid refrigerant branch pipeline branched from the liquid refrigerant pipeline to the electronic expansion valves in the indoor units, a gas refrigerant pipeline for guiding gas refrigerant separated at the gas-liquid separators, a gas refrigerant branch pipeline branched from the gas refrigerant pipeline to the indoor heat exchangers in the indoor unit, and a heating mode return branch pipeline branched from a fore end of the liquid refrigerant pipeline for returning refrigerant heat exchanged in selected indoor units depending on operation conditions, a cooling mode return branch pipeline branched from each of the gas refrigerant branch pipelines for returning refrigerant heat exchanged at selected indoor units depending on operation conditions, and a return pipeline for joining the heating mode return branch pipeline and the cooling mode return branch pipeline into one pipeline and connected to the indoor unit pipelines.
Preferably, the gas refrigerant pipeline and the liquid refrigerant pipeline are arranged in parallel for an efficiency of piping. The outdoor pipelines includes a pipeline connecting an outlet of the compressor and an inlet of the gas-liquid separator, to form a refrigerant flow passage from the compressor to the gas-liquid separator, and a pipeline connecting the return pipeline and the inlet of the compressor to form a refrigerant flow passage from the distributor to the compressor.
The outdoor valves include a first four way valve mounted on an outlet side of the compressor for making the outdoor pipelines in communication with each other selectively, to fix a flow path of the refrigerant to/from the compressor, and a second four way valve mounted on a gas-liquid separator side to be operative in correspondence to the first four way valve, for making the outdoor pipelines in communication with each other selectively, to fix a flow path of the refrigerant to/from the return pipeline.
The outdoor pipeline connected between the second four way valve and the gas-liquid separator is a high pressure section only a high pressure state of refrigerant flows therethrough, and the outdoor pipeline connected between the distributor pipeline and the second four way valve is a low pressure section only a low pressure state of refrigerant flows therethrough.
The high pressure section includes high pressure branch pipelines branched to the gas-liquid separators, and the low pressure section includes low pressure branch pipelines branched to the return pipelines of the distributors.
The high pressure section has a pipe diameter smaller than the low pressure section for prevention of non-uniform flow rates caused by a specific volume difference between high pressure refrigerant and low pressure refrigerant.
The distributor includes a valve part for controlling refrigerant flow in the distributor pipelines. The valve part includes a first electronic expansion valve mounted between the gas-liquid separator and the heating mode return branch pipeline for controlling an opening thereof depending on an operation condition, a second electronic expansion valve mounted on the heating mode return branch pipeline for controlling an opening thereof depending on an operation condition, and a plurality of control valves mounted on the gas refrigerant branch pipelines, liquid refrigerant branch pipelines, and cooling mode return branch pipeline.
In this instance, it is preferable that the control valve is two way valve turned on/off selectively depending on operation condition.
The distributor pipeline further includes an equalizing pipeline part connected between the distributors for equal supply of refrigerant to the distributors. The equalizing pipeline part includes a gas refrigerant equalizing pipeline for equal supply of gas refrigerant introduced into the gas-liquid separators to the distributors, and liquid refrigerant equalizing pipeline for equal supply of liquid refrigerant introduced into the gas-liquid separators to the distributors.
The gas refrigerant equalizing pipeline is connected to the gas refrigerant pipeline of the distributors, and the liquid refrigerant equalizing pipeline is connected to the liquid refrigerant pipeline of the distributors. The liquid refrigerant equalizing pipeline has a pipe diameter smaller than the gas refrigerant equalizing pipeline for prevention of non-uniform flow rates caused by a specific volume difference between high pressure refrigerant and low pressure refrigerant.
It is to be understood that both the foregoing description and the following detailed description of the present invention are exemplary and explanatory and are intended to provide further explanation of the invention claimed.